


Touch

by dantesanomaly



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Five And One, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Willowson - Freeform, no offense but they love each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2018-12-18 11:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11873610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dantesanomaly/pseuds/dantesanomaly
Summary: Five times Willow and Wilson touched out of necessity and one time for...no reason at all. Told from alternating POVs.





	1. One

At least there would be a fire.

They wouldn’t need one until dark- the heat on this island had been consistently thick and oppressive, at least for the week Willow had been here- but she would definitely need one to keep her sane. When she’d first come across Higgsbury just hours ago, she’d been so relieved to find another human being that she had failed to register the warning signs of someone who truly did not know how to shut up. Willow had agreed to follow him to his camp, unable to resist the prospect of cooked meat and real human contact, but after hours of hiking after him through the dense forest and listening to him rant on about science, she was beginning to regret her choice. But, hey, it was a feeling she was quite used to by now.

“-which is to say, of course, that if we were somehow to  _ circumvent _ the problem of inertia-”

“Higgsbury.” She couldn’t take it anymore. Her companion turned abruptly to face her, adjusting the straps of his backpack.

“Yes, Miss Willow?”

“Are we almost there? You said it wasn’t far.”

“Oh! Of course. It’s just past this ravine- oh, would you look at that...”

Willow made a low grumbling noise which went unnoticed by the scientist. Distracted, he had bent to examine one of the evil-looking flowers Willow had seen dotted throughout the island. He was mumbling to himself and reaching out to touch it. She sighed. Higgsbury had told her that he’d been on the island alone for nearly two months, but she found it hard to believe that the strange, pale man in front of her was going to survive the rest of the trek to his camp.

At least, two months was what he’d  _ told _ her. He didn’t strike her as the type to lie- or the type who would be any good at lying in the first place- but he also didn’t particularly strike her as the type to remember to eat consistently, much less get organized and prepared enough to brave the wilderness alone.

“Higgsbury. Leave the evil flower alone.”

His head snapped up and he looked at her almost guiltily, like he’d been caught elbow-deep in the cookie jar.

“Right, of course. I have enough samples at camp already, probably, well, it couldn’t hurt to have a few more, but I suppose-”

“Please don’t tell me you’ve already made a habit of picking these things. I thought you were supposed to be smart. The evil flowers are  _ clearly _ dangerous,” she said. Higgsbury stood and straightened his vest, jerking his chin up.

“I am a  _ scientist _ ,” he bagan petulantly, and Willow rolled her eyes and started walking ahead of him. “A  _ gentleman _ scientist, in fact, and- wait, you don’t even know where you’re going! Miss- Miss Willow!”

She heard foliage crunching under his feet as he jogged to catch up with her.

“A  _ gentleman _ scientist, huh?” Willow asked, rubbing her thumb over the lighter she kept in her pocket. Higgsbury was beside her now, nodding vigorously.

“Yes, precisely.”

“And what exactly is the difference between a  _ regular _ scientist and a gentleman scientist?”

Higgsbury paused, and when he spoke again he sounded startled by the question. Then again, she’d noticed that he always sounded at least slightly off-guard when he wasn’t talking about science.

“Oh, well, I- I’m more honorable. And, and chivalrous. And I give my coat to women. When they’re cold. Or, I would, of course, if I knew many women, which I would  _ like _ to, except that I do tend to spend most of my time in my attic, and there really aren’t many women there at all- I mean, not that I would bring women into my attic, but I, well, I certainly wouldn’t  _ object _ to it- not in an untoward way, of course- um-”

Willow let him talk. She was beginning to find that she quite liked just letting Higgsbury talk himself in circles instead of interjecting when she was clearly meant to. She quirked an eyebrow at him just to watch his blush deepen.

“I, uh,” he said. Then he looked forward and a wave of relief washed over his face. “Camp! There’s my camp, at the bottom of the hill. You’ll see that I already have a science machine and I’m working on an alchemy engine, and that’s my tent- you’re welcome to put up your own, of course, if you’ll be staying, and I do hope you will, for survival reasons, of course…”

Willow had stopped paying attention the moment she saw the stone walls he’d erected around his modest little camp.  _ Walls. _ Excitement shot through her. He’d put down wood flooring, too, and traps around the perimeter of the camp. It looked so much safer than spending her nights huddled around a tiny campfire in the woods. She might even be able to get some real sleep here. With her relief came a sudden bone-deep exhaustion that she suspected had been following her a while.

“Not bad,” she murmured.

“You think so?” Wilson asked, his voice almost eager. “I just finished fixing up the walls, and I added new tooth traps to keep the hounds out…”

In the old world Willow might have found his babbling full-on insufferable rather than just annoying, but here on this island, the sound of another human voice was suddenly a strange and wonderful thing, no matter what stupid science it was describing. As she marched down the hill for the first time, it occurred to Willow that, though she’d assumed almost from the beginning that she was only putting off a slow death by starvation with every berry bush she picked clean, she might just be able to survive here.

…

Willow dug through her rudimentary backpack and piled the last of the logs she’d cut for herself onto the fire, coaxing it back to life as the sun fell in the sky. Higgsbury- Wilson, she supposed, now that they were camping together- had gone off to collect and kill rabbits from the traps he’d set around the savannah nearly an hour ago, but not before he’d showed her around the camp, lectured her briefly on the science machine, and then stared at her awkwardly for a moment. Willow’s mouth twisted into a haf-smile. She got the sense that this man had had even less experience with socializing than she’d had in the old world. She could picture him in his (apparently woman-less) attic, eyebrows singed off, hair sticking out at even weirder angles than usual, hunched over beakers and charts and “samples” of every mildly interesting thing he came across. He was absolutely the oddest man she’d ever met, and she’d already decided resolutely not to become  _ friends  _ with him or anything, but he did seem harmless enough.

Willow poked at the fire and smiled softly as it hissed and popped. Even in the sweltering summer evening, she treasured its warmth. Fire, at least, was the same everywhere: livid with color, dangerous, gorgeous, welcoming. Safe. Willow was safe with her fire.

She turned her head to see Wilson returning briskly to camp as darkness fell, his backpack heavy and his arms full of dead rabbit. She’d never been so thrilled to see murdered woodland animals in her life.

“Meat!” She cried.

“That it is, Miss Willow! The traps have been generous today.”

She considered getting up to help him, but she didn’t want to leave her fire just yet. She was feeling better than she had all week.

A few minutes later, the two of them were sitting on adjacent logs, digging into fresh rabbit. It was blissful. Willow ate like an animal.

“So-” started Wilson, after his rabbit was all gone and he’d strung up the extra morsels to dry on the racks, “How did you...come to be here?”

“Guy in a suit,” she mumbled tersely around a mouthful of her second morsel. “Made me a deal. Tricked me. I ended up here.” She didn’t see why she had to give him any more detail than that. It wasn’t something she liked to think about.

“Maxwell, you mean?” Wilson leaned towards her in interest, hands steepled together.

She looked up from her rabbit, suspicious. “You know him?”

“He brought me here, too. Trickery, of course.” Wilson was rubbing his chin contemplatively. “Have you met anyone else on the island? Besides myself.”

Willow shook her head, sucking the last pieces of meat from the bone. Thankfully, Wilson appeared too preoccupied to be properly disgusted by her manners.

“Hmm.” Wilson got up and jogged to one of his makeshift chests, rooting around noisily. Willow licked her fingers while his back was turned, feeling her hunger satisfied for the first time in what felt like ages. She nudged the fire as Wilson made his way back over with what looked to be a stack of papyrus and charcoal in his hands, admiring the sparks that rose from the disturbed logs. Sleepy with heat and contentment, she reached in and let the flames play over her pale hands. She felt something in her chest begin to thaw just a little with the contact.

Suddenly, something grabbed her.

It yanked her back from the fire, gripping her wrists. Willow slammed her elbow into her her attacker on instinct before she realized it was Wilson.

“What the  _ hell _ -”

But he wasn’t paying attention. Instead he was frantically examining her hands, turning them over and back again. She realized he was looking for burns.

“Miss Will-”

“Get  _ off  _ of me! I’m fine!” His chest was to her back, his arms wrapped around her from behind, hands still running anxiously over hers. He stilled.

“You- you’re not burned.”

“No,” she snapped. “I don’t burn. I’m not _ that _ senseless.”

“But I thought-”

“Look, get off of me and I’ll show you.”

Wilson suddenly seemed to realize how close they were and scrambled back, his face an alarming shade of red.

“Oh, I- do forgive me, I- that was  _ most _ ungentlemanly-” His shoulders were hunched up next to his ears and he seemed to curl in on himself from embarrassment. After a moment Willow took pity on him.

“I did put my hand in the fire, but look- no, just watch.” He had shot up again in alarm as she reached into the flames and she waved him off. She kept her hand in for a long minute and then pulled it back and and held it in front of him, turning it so that he could see both sides.

“See? No harm done.”

She saw understanding dawn on his face and for a split second she was nauseous with regret. Shit.  _ Shit. _ What had made her think that this would end well? When had anyone ever reacted calmly to learning she was fireproof? Oh, no, he was going to-

“Amazing,” he whispered, the embarrassment draining from his face. Quickly it was replaced with wonder. He reached his hand towards her and then stopped. “May I-?”

Willow nodded mutely. She waited for the other shoe to drop, waited for the disgust or the fear, too tense to speak.

Wilson’s hands were cool against hers. She noticed what she hadn’t had the chance to before: the gentleness of his touch, the calluses on his palms. He studied her hand with an intense, self-assured focus she hadn’t seen from him before. She shivered as his thumb swept across her exposed wrist.

She pulled her hand back and held it against her chest, still wary. Wilson’s eyes were bright as they met hers.

“How did this happen? Have you always been this way? Is it your whole body or just your hands? Does  _ anything _ burn you? How extensively have you tested this?”

It was Willow’s turn to stammer.

“I, uh- I’m just like this. I’ve been like this for- always. I don’t know.” She looked down at the wood underneath her boots.

“Marvellous.”

Willow met his gaze again. “What?”

“ _ Marvellous! _ How- this is unprecedented!” He grasped her hand with both of his. “Miss Willow, you didn’t tell me! You’re incredible!”

Willow stared at him, processing his reaction slowly. What the hell was he on about? She was- well, most people thought she was an abomination, and that was one of the nicer words they used.

“What-” she began, and then swallowed thickly. Good lord, this island was infinitely strange.

“It’s, um. I don’t know. You don’t- you don’t think it’s. Unnatural?” Though she couldn’t stop herself from asking the question, Willow didn’t want this man to think that she particularly  _ cared _ about his opinion or anything, so she tried to make her tone apathetic, maybe unimpressed. Instead she ended up sounding defensive.

Wilson was looking at her still, his eyes alight with excitement. “Why, of course it’s unnatural!”

Willow flinched.

“Which is not to say that it’s bad! Do forgive me, I simply meant- it’s magic! It’s- it’s- wonderful. Truly.”

They sat a long moment in silence, regarding each other, one with wonderment and the other with no shortage of disbelief. Willow had the strangest feeling that she...perhaps she didn’t mind having her hands in his like this. Perhaps.

Then Wilson seemed again to remember that he was touching another human being and flushed a funny pink.

“I- oh. Anyway, I, wouldn’t you know it, I uh- I have to- science,” he said, getting up and beginning to fidget furiously with this shirtsleeves. “There’s a straw roll in-” he gestured vaguely at the chest nearest the fire. “Anyway, science now, must be going, goodnight!” With that he nearly sprinted to his tent and ducked out of sight. Willow sat for a long while by the fire, staring after him. She rubbed the back of her neck, perplexed.

_ Wonderful. _ Huh.


	2. Two

All things considered, this wasn’t a  _ total _ failure. Wilson reassured himself of this as he sprinted away from the swarm of spiders at his back. He’d gotten plenty of silk and a couple of spider glands, too, he just- well, as much as it pained him to admit, he may have slightly miscalculated how many spiders were in a nest that big.  _ Slightly. _

Wilson felt something heavy leap onto his back and heard an agitated hissing in his ear. He swiped at it desperately with his axe, but it was difficult to get at without risking cutting himself bady. Suddenly something sank deep into his shoulder and he yelped in pain. Wilson rammed his back into a nearby tree and heard the spider squeal as it released its grip on him and fell to the ground. He took a breath and kept running.

They were nearly upon him now, and their collective hissing blurred together and began to sound like the rushing of a very malicious river. Wilson tried to push for an extra burst of speed, but it was all he could do not to slow down. Ahead he saw a break in the trees, and angled toward it with a burst of hope. If he could just get back to camp-

The woods spit him out onto the plain near camp and Wilson stumbled with the change of terrain. He lost crucial seconds adjusting to the tall grasses and in that time the spiders came ever closer, snapping at his heels.

“ _ Wilson? _ ”

Oh, thank God. Wilson saw his campmate up ahead, grabbing a spear and rushing towards him. He made it a few more steps before his legs finally gave up and he crumpled unceremoniously into the grass.

Hissing filled his ears and he felt the weight of what had to be several warrior spiders on his back. He reached limply for his axe where it had fallen in the dirt several feet from him, but he couldn’t quite get a grip on it-

Something whistled by his head and Wilson felt the spiders fly from his back, and heard the vicious squelching of a spear against the rest of them.

“Die!  _ Die! _ ”

Wilson, not for the first time, thanked God for Miss Willow’s usually off-putting propensity for violence. By the time he’d managed to curl his fingers around the worn handle of his axe, the last of the squealing had stopped.

“Wilson, what did you do? Where’s your log suit?” Willow was at his side now, and, judging by the hot breath against his face, so was Chester. Wilson groaned.

“m alright,” he mumbled into the dirt.

“You’re- oh,  _ horsefeathers _ . Come on. Up you go,” said Willow, who was hooking her hands under Wilson’s arms and trying to heave him upright. She was surprisingly strong for someone so small.

Together they managed to get him mostly standing, at which point the world began to swim before Wilson quite sickeningly. He bent over and threw up into the grass. He didn’t even have the energy to be properly embarrassed.

Willow just sighed heavily and wrapped an arm around his waist.

…

Wilson woke in his tent, the smell of beefalo wool thick in the air. It was, by now, a comfort.

He cracked open his eyes and looked around, trying to ground himself. Ah, there were his notes, on stacks of papyrus, and a small pile of gears he’d found a few days ago. He startled when he heard the flap of his tent rustle.

“Huh. He lives.” Willow was ducking in, and behind her the sky was an ambiguous shade of gray-blue. Was it dawn or dusk?

Presently Wilson was distracted by more pressing issues. There was a woman in his tent. Oh, goodness. This was- those two things were certainly not meant to mix.

“Miss-” Wilson cleared his throat. “Miss Willow! You- thank you for-”

“Don’t get your pants in a bunch about it. Are you hungry?”

Wilson nodded vigorously. Willow disappeared, and reappeared with a great deal of jerky.

“ _ Thank _ you,” said Wilson, and then did not speak again until he’d eaten four. As he finished, it occurred to him again to worry about his present company. He wasn’t even wearing his vest!

Willow had watched him for any signs that he was making himself sick, and chewed on her meatballs warily. She set her plate down now, and reached into her backpack.

“I, ah,” began Wilson. Hm. Not a good start. Perhaps a different approach was warranted. “It appears, well- what time of day is it?”

It would have to do. He was a scientist; like many of his colleagues, human interaction puzzled and distressed him, which led him to spend more time around plants and machines, which only exacerbated the problem. He was doing pretty well, all things considered.

Willow didn’t look up. “Almost evening now.”

“Oh! Well, ah-”

“Take your shirt off.”

What on- surely Wilson hadn’t heard right.

“I beg your pardon?” he squeaked. His face felt like it was on fire. Miss Willow probably would have liked that.

“I need to look at your back. It’s pretty torn up, but I made more of the healing salve from spider glands.”

“You-” His back  _ did  _ feel positively awful. But- “I’m afraid that would be most unge-”

“If you say ‘ungentlemanly’ I  _ will _ sock you, Higgsbury.” Oh dear. Lately Miss Willow tended only to use his last name when she was being serious, and Wilson had had about enough beatings today.

Still. It felt quite untoward. Not that he would attempt anything untoward! It just- well, it just wasn’t-

“Stop overthinking it. Do you want to die of infection?” She was looking at him with impatience now, a bowl of salve and a bundle of bandaging in her lap. She was right; infection was  _ not  _ a pleasant way to go.

Wilson cleared his throat again, and after a moment reached tentatively towards the buttons on his shirt, like he was afraid of being bitten. Willow waited, not bothering to look away. Her pale eyes were as intense, as unyielding, as ever. The steadiness of her gaze unnerved him, but it wasn’t- completely objectionable.

What?  _ Get it together, Higgsbury. _ This was-this was survival, after all. This was purely necessary. Even scientific!

The thought of science soothed Wilson as he undid the last of his buttons and slid his shirt off of his shoulders, wincing sharply as his back protested the movement.

“Is this- should I-” Wilson cursed his pale skin; he knew that he was probably quite a vivid shade of pink by now. Willow got up and knelt behind him.

“I’m doing the hard part. Just stay still.”

Wilson clasped and unclasped his hands, skittish at the presence behind him. Months on the island had made him especially uncomfortable with leaving his back unguarded.

He heard a rustle as Willow set aside his shirt and leaned in. Wilson swallowed hard.

“How am I looking?” It came out higher than he’d intended.

“Not horrible, but this might take a while to heal. We’ll see.”

Wilson flinched at the first featherlight touch on his back. It was raw and sore and quite unused to being touched in a nonviolent way.

“Sorry,” Willow murmured.

“I suppose the stinging means it’s working?”

“Let’s hope so.”

Silence fell as Willow worked, broken only by the occasional pained noises Wilson couldn’t help but make. Willow took her time, surprisingly diligent with her work. He always forgot that she’d been a girl scout.

Wilson began to relax as the minutes passed. It was- well, it hurt, but it was- almost...nice to have someone else do this. He did  _ not  _ miss his days alone on the island. And Miss Willow did have lovely hands, slender and careful and always warm to the touch. She smoothed the salve over his skin delicately. Something about the contact made him ache, just a little. If when he shifted position he ended up leaning just a little more into her touch, he was sure she didn’t notice. And it wasn’t intentional, of course.

Wilson wondered if he had all sorts of unpleasant scars back there now. This wasn’t his first encounter with an unfriendly mob; surely his body wasn’t easy on the eyes these days. Not that it ever had been. And not that it mattered, of course! Wilson ran his thumb over his left palm, worrying at the scar there.

“All done.” Willow’s hands left his back.

“Hm?”

“I’m all done. This wrapping should stay for a while. Does it still sting?”

In truth, Wilson had stopped noticing the sting of it a while ago. He felt an odd and sharp loss at the absence of Willow’s hands.

“Ah- yes- I mean, no, it doesn’t-” Oh, goodness. “Thank you,” he added lamely. Willow moved around him and looked into his face, her eyes scrunched up.

“You sure you’re alright? You look a little red.”

“I’m, uh! It’s- science!”

Willow raised an eyebrow. “You’re acting awful strange. Stranger than normal, I mean.”

“And what is  _ that _ supposed to mean?” Wilson asked, still collected enough to be indignant. Willow laughed, a soft, flutey sound. Wilson found that he quite liked it.

“I mean you’re off your rocker, Higgsbury. Makes me think you were crazy before you even got here.”

“Miss  _ Willow _ ,” began Wilson, but he was laughing a little now, too. He couldn’t help it. Willow laughing was just such a delightful thing to see. It made her whole face gentler somehow.

They trailed off into a light silence, still looking at each other.

“Well, um. That’s that, I guess.” Willow turned away and started packing her supplies back in her bag, her motions a little clumsier than before. There seemed almost to be a light flush to her cheeks. Was she not feeling well? Oh, that would be bad. They couldn’t both be under the weather.

Willow got up and hurried to the entrance of the tent, only looking back when she’d lifted the flap and set one foot out into the night. She paused a beat.

“Night, Wilson.”

“Goodnight, Miss Willow.”

Wilson leaned back on his hands after she left, still looking at the spot she’d occupied. Crickets chirped insistently as night fell, and he could hear the rustle of rabbits returning to their dens out on the plains. He wasn’t sure why he was smiling so. Probably the science of it all, he thought. Probably.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willow gets caught out in the woods after dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I'm sorry it took me a full millennium to finish this chapter I hope those of you who read it like it :)

Willow looked back through the thick trees behind her and chewed her lip, anxious. The sun had begun to sink sooner than she’d anticipated, and now, as it hung just over the horizon, she could delay her decision no longer. Should she try and make it back to camp tonight or just set up where she was?  
Of course, it hardly made sense to head back now and hike through the night, what with the uneven terrain through the woods and the cold, sharp things that lived in the dark. Willow’s backpack was heavy with what she’d gathered and her legs burned from walking so far. And yet- she’d been camping with Wilson for weeks now, and she hadn’t had to spend a night alone in some time. It wasn’t something she’d missed; she felt her mood turn now as she thought of the long hours ahead of her, sitting as close as she could to a fire that never seemed big enough, trying and failing to ignore the way the island whispered under moonlight. Nights like those were interminable, and without fail seemed to last twice as long as they were supposed to.  
But Willow had done it before! She’d be fine. Wilson would be fine. She pulled an axe from her backpack- it was looking a little rough, but it should last her long enough to cut down a few small trees- and got to work.  
…  
An hour and a healthy stack of firewood later, Willow was still worrying, which she found quite bothersome. It had occurred to her that Wilson wouldn’t know whether or not she was okay, but then it had also occurred to her that he didn’t have much reason to care, anyway. Not that he didn’t care at all, but- well, Willow wasn’t even sure if they counted as friends. Who knew whether or not they would have even talked to each other outside of the current...extenuating circumstances?  
Willow double checked her backpack: plenty of fresh berries and enough jerky to last a few days at least. She ran her thumb over her lighter and looked around her at the darkening forest. Dusk crept steadily inwards, and Willow finally allowed herself to gather together some kindling and build her campfire.  
She let out a breath of relief when it caught in earnest, and settled flush against the circle of flame. The crack and snap of the fire loosened something in her chest. This was fine. This was nothing she hadn’t done before. Nothing she wouldn’t do again.  
Willow shifted uncomfortably, placing her hands over the coals. Would she do this again? Somehow, over the last few weeks, she supposed that she had let herself begin to believe that she wouldn’t. As Willow’s presence became more and more a part of the camp- there were chests that were hers now, and a tent, and plenty of firewood and meat that she’d worked hard to get for them both- she had allowed herself some sense of permanence.  
Silly. That had been silly.  
Upset, Willow put a log on the fire that she should have been saving for later. She let the rush of heat soothe her as darkness fell.  
It was awfully quiet without Wilson. Most of everything he had to say was hogwash, of course, but that didn’t mean Willow hadn’t grown accustomed to it. Sometimes he even managed to be interesting.  
That wasn’t what she missed, though. Willow rested her chin on her knees. Somehow she missed the useless babble most of all. He had a tendency to hum, too, which Willow didn’t think he was even aware of. He usually did it when he tinkered- the same jaunty melodies for hours on end, tuneless and distracted. Sometimes he got stuck on the same few bars and sang them over and over under his breath until Willow had to go and check traps just to get away from the sound of it. His singing voice was scratchy and quiet from lack of training, and his music taste left plenty to be desired, but- well. All things considered, it was a pleasant, warm tenor, and Willow supposed that it had become less grating over time. It had never made her smile or anything, though, not once. Not even a little.  
Willow heard the skittering of spiders in the distance. Too close for comfort, but she hadn’t seen any nests nearby when she’d been chopping wood, so probably they were far enough away that they wouldn’t bother her in numbers.  
There had been a time when Willow had always had company at night, whether she slept or not. There had been, for so many years, the soft breathing of her sisters, as much a part of nighttime as the watery moonlight through her window. Willow had always seemed to be too cold, or too cramped, or too big for the bed she shared with so many others, but she would've given anything now to be packed in like a sardine among people she loved, with a cramped neck and a full heart.  
This new place didn’t have a roof, but there was, for the first time in so many years, the steady hush of breathing at night. Sometimes Willow thought those nighttime sounds, so endlessly, strangely comforting, might even have been worth the spiders.  
...  
Even though she’d made much better time on the way back, it was almost noon by the time Willow returned to camp. Her shoulders dropped in relief when she saw the compact silhouette of it across the field, and she adjusted the straps of her backpack one last time. With what she’d gathered on her two-day hike, surely she could afford to rest for a few hours by the firepit. Oh, gosh, her lovely firepit. She felt like she’d been gone for weeks.  
Willow felt a sudden stab of anxiety as she approached. What if Wilson wasn’t even there? Which was, obviously, a stupid thing to worry about, but. But what if. Wilson was a strange and haphazard sort of man, and sometimes he seemed to draw disaster to himself like a magnet. For all she knew he could have been-  
And there it was, the anxious clattering, the mild chaotic kind of noise that only Wilson managed to generate. Willow let out a breath and stepped past the stone walls and back into camp.  
“-how hard can it be to just- no, not there, we talked about this-” Wilson hadn’t yet looked up from a pile of junk next to the science machine, over which he was hunched, waistcoat partially unbuttoned, looking about ready to hammer it all to pieces. Except that it was already in pieces. Smaller ones, then. Willow watched him for a minute, a little paralysed with relief.  
Wilson froze mid-sentence when he caught sight of Willow. Oh, gosh. He wasn’t mad, was he? He-  
Wilson jumped up and crossed camp in an instant, and then he was hugging Willow- hugging her- quite hard, actually-  
“Wilson,” she mumbled from where her face was pressed into his shoulder. He actually didn’t smell so bad. A little sweaty, sure, but. She could get used to it.  
Wilson jerked away without warning and emitted the most awkward cough Willow had ever heard. Halfway through it turned into a real cough and then Willow was just standing there trying not to look amused while Wilson got redder by the second.  
“You, uh, you’re back! I worried- I thought-” he paused to cough again and then moved his hands to his hips, and then behind his back, and then settled for running them through his hair. He looked like he’d just gotten a new pair of arms and couldn’t quite figure out what to do with them. It made Willow smile.  
“Yeah, I’m sorry about- I walked farther than I thought I had, and then it was getting dark, so.” Willow shrugged. “But I got plenty of meat!”  
“Right,” said Wilson. His eyes has gone all weird and soft, and he was wearing a goofy little smile on his face. He looked, realized Willow, almost as relieved as she felt.  
Huh.  
Wilson brushed his hands over the front of his waistcoat, and then busied himself making sure all the buttons were buttoned.  
“I, that is to say, I’m- sorry about the- that was awfully-” Wilson mumbled to his shoes.  
“The what?”  
Another awkward cough. Good lord, she’d forgotten how uneasy Wilson could sometimes be in his own body. He gestured lamely in Willow’s direction.  
“The, ah, the- well, I did hug you, but I- I mean, I don’t mean to be- I was just relieved, is all- not that I was, of course, worried, because of course you're plenty capable of- well, not that I wasn’t worried, you see, but purely on-”  
Willow breached the distance between them- hesitated- and patted him arm in a way she hoped was reassuring. Then she headed towards her firepit.  
He really was the strangest man. But, well. She didn’t mind his hugs so much.  
…  
Night fell and Willow unrolled her straw mat flush against the side of the firepit. She drifted in and out of sleep, lulled by the glowing constancy of her fire. Wilson stayed close by working on his trash pile, and every time she woke from strange and cavernous dreams, Willow smiled to hear him just a few feet away, tinkering, muttering, breathing. These were safe nighttime sounds, gentle and familiar. Wilson got up more than once to add logs to the fire, keeping it higher and brighter than it needed to be, the way Willow liked it. The moon shone flat in the sky; the hounds bayed from afar. The fire burned. Wilson hummed. In her sleep, Willow smiled.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Wilson and Willow go on a hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I'm so sorry that it's been so long since I updated this. I haven't forgotten! It's just been a tough few months for me. Thank you so much for reading and especially for all your comments and feedback. I'll be back to edit this chapter later, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy what I've got!

Really, there was no reason to wear a waistcoat in the wilderness. Wilson should have scrapped it a hundred times over, torn up for tourniquets or rags or ties, but each time he found himself unable to actually rip it up (how could he even call himself a gentleman without some semblance of the proper attire, anyway?).  
He did his best to keep a steady hand as he sewed up another tear in the back, his stitches as even as he could manage. Wilson was still working on a reliable way to get bloodstains out, but in the meantime he could at least try to keep the garment together. Beside him, the campfire snapped and popped warmly against the early morning chill. As the weeks passed and the nights lengthened, it had become harder to pretend that they weren’t headed towards some sort of winter. Wilson paused to worry the faded fabric of his waistcoat between calloused fingers. Summers were bad enough, and if the island began to freeze in earnest, he had no idea how they’d manage. He chewed absently on his lip. They would need to figure out how to make winter clothes. Perhaps with beefalo hide? But they were awfully difficult to isolate and kill...  
Wilson heard a triumphant shout from the field and looked up just in time to catch Willow bursting back into camp. He shoved his waistcoat out of sight, embarrassed, and grabbed the nearest thing within arm’s reach, trying to look busy with something more useful.  
“Koalefant track!” proclaimed Willow from across camp. She was looking at him expectantly, one hand on her hip, a smear of dirt (or blood? or both...) across her cheek. She wore the ridiculous pigskin helmet Wilson had put together the day before, and her long skirt was tied up on one side to keep it out of the way. Wilson swallowed and did not look at the slender curve of her exposed legs.  
“You don’t say,” said Wilson.  
Oh, no, surely she didn’t want him to accompany her on a hunt. Wilson was nearly as bad at those as he was at dancing (for some reason the two very different activities always seemed to trip him up in the same ways).  
“Hurry up! If we wait all day I might lose the trail. What, do ya have something better to do?” Willow tapped her spear emphatically against the wooden camp floor and threw a pointed look at Wilson’s hands. He looked down; he was holding a hammer and a silk hat.  
“I don’t suppose I do…” he mumbled. He sure did owe Willow, anyway. Ever since she’d showed up, Wilson had started feeling much more grounded in sanity, and though feeding two mouths should have been harder than feeding one, Wilson turned out to be a bit of a dewdropper compared to his companion. She could leave for half a day and come back with a knapsack leaden with meat! The least he could do was help out instead of sitting around mending a now completely defunct article of clothing.  
“Alright, then,” he said, trying to muster some scrap of enthusiasm. “Lead the way!”  
...  
Wilson was not, and never had been, particularly gifted at staying still. He suspected that he was something of a defective perpetual motion machine- a creature that would run and run and run until, without warning and much to its creator’s dismay, it sputtered out completely. Until his best-by date, however, he was unstoppable. He was a skinny runaway train that dealt in fidgets and mumbles and high-speed interpersonal crashes that were much more destructive than a tidy trainwreck.  
This made it very hard to hunt. He took a deep breath, careful to be quiet, and tried to relax the cramping muscles in his legs. This was fine. He could do this for another hour. Why, he could do it for another day! What were a few eternities crouched behind an inordinately spiky bush compared to an eight a.m. lecture?  
Beside him, Willow was deathly still, her face folded up in concentration, her shirt nearly unrecognizable with blood and mud stains. Her lighter lay untouched in the deep pocket of her skirt, and she’d made no effort to brush her wild, knotted hair away from her face. By all means, she looked positively feral. Wilson’s heart stuttered and tripped over itself in admiration.   
The sun dipped further towards the horizon minute by minute, heavy with fatigue, and Wilson heard the first of the evening crickets begin to chirp; he ran his thumb nervously across the worn handle of his spear.  
In what Wilson tended to think of as the real world, there was no shortage of handsome men and women. In his time at college, especially, he had attended many dinners and dances and social gatherings, and always everyone dressed splendidly, in fine silks and velvet, with rouge-tinted cheeks and exorbitantly shiny leather shoes. His roommate Bernard tended to head straight for the champagne whenever they went out, and would be half-seas over by ten o’clock, leaving Wilson alone in some fancy but vacant corner even though he was always the one who insisted Wilson come with. Wilson didn’t mind so much, though. He was not, well, terribly gifted at social interaction, and he was a heeler to boot, but he had always appreciated the fine taste of it all, and was rather happy by himself, watching people spin fancifully across the dancefloor in pairs, gilded and delicate by candlelight.  
And yet-  
When, in what gorgeous dining hall, on what perfect summer evening, had Wilson ever seen anything so fiercely lovely as Willow, covered in mud?  
Crouched in what must have been a pile of bird scat, eyes tight with bloodlust, she outshone them all.  
“Are you gonna keep starin’ all day or are ya gonna help me hunt?” Willow whispered, without looking away from the clearing. Wilson flushed.  
“Right, absolutely, yes, I’m- can I-”  
“Quiet. Just keep your eyes peeled, dummy. And stop lollygagging.”  
“Right,” he mumbled. Right. He shook his head. Now was not the time. Not that there ever would be a time for- for these kind of useless, profoundly unscientific thoughts-  
And anyway, even when Wilson didn’t have a week-old unkempt beard and the smell of a swamp pig, he’d never been any kind of big-timer. Probably back home Willow already had plenty of gentleman callers, and probably they all knew how to actually dance, too. Ha! To think she’d even look his way if they weren’t trapped together. Anyway, he was almost thirty-two, and Willow must've been in her mid-twenties. She could be even younger, for all he knew! (He’d never asked. You could take a gentlemen out of civilized society, plant him on an evil island rife with dark magic, and force him to regularly kill small woodland creatures, but you couldn’t make him unlearn all his manners.) Willow was smart. She would never waste her time on some old, unhinged bachelor with a filthy inherited cabin and an unbreakable habit of setting himself on fire.  
(Maybe she wouldn't mind the fire bit. And he’d clean up his house, of course- no, he’d save up and buy a nice new one, and-  
Good God, Higgsbury, get yourself together-)  
Suddenly- movement! A ways away, Wilson heard two birds lift off the forest floor in a rush of feathers. Willow’s head snapped around, her eyes trained on the trees ahead. And then: a soft huff and the surprisingly gentle sound of foliage shuffling and crushing under large feet. Wilson’s hands twitched.  
Finally, finally, the koalefant lumbered into a nearby clearing, its leathery ears flapping mildly. Wilson’s stomach flipped and turned with hunger like a dying fish. Willow made a slight gesture with her hand, palm down. Wait. Overhead, the limbs of the trees snapped in the breeze.  
And then Willow was up and running. Wilson followed right on her heels, his legs seizing and cramping at the sudden movement.  
“Wilson!” barked Willow. “Circle around!”  
Wilson banked to the right and sprinted towards the other end of the clearing, ducking under the wide, angry arc of the koalefant’s trunk. It let out an ear-shattering trumpet as Willow stabbed at its other flank and then darted back out of range; Wilson jumped forward and pushed the blade of his spear into its soft belly while it was distracted. The koalefant shrieked and bucked, and Willow and Wilson moved back to a safer distance and circled the it again to keep it off-balance. Hunting something as large as a koalefant was a delicate and furious endeavor, but with another set of hands Wilson found that it was actually doable- especially since that extra set of hands belonged to Willow (who, he learned pretty fast, must have a heck of a lot of pent-up anger to be able to fight like she did). A focused koalefant was nothing short of deadly, but if a hunting party could keep its attention divided, everyone could usually survive to see a couple rounds of meaty stew.  
They circled like this for what felt like ages, stabbing and sprinting and ducking, breathless with adrenaline and hunger. In the end the battle spanned almost half a mile of wood, leaving a trail of splintered trees and trampled undergrowth. Wilson was nearly stepped on twice over, and he thought Willow might have been clipped by one of the koalefant’s great tusks, but by the time the sky began to turn orange with sunset, the animal was stumbling more than it was running, a long thread of blood trailing from its open mouth.  
The koalefant swayed for a moment and caught itself, and Wilson shot forward at the opening. Willow got in a deep cut on one of its front legs and Wilson had a second to tighten his grip on his spear before he rammed it full force into the tender spot at near the koalefant’s thigh.  
This, finally, was enough. The animal gave one last tremulous bellow and, at last, fell to the ground. Wilson stood for a moment, breathing hard, watching for any sign that the koalefant was going to get back up.  
Once he was sure it was down for good, Wilson jogged over, his feet dragging through the dirt, and knelt beside it. He lay his left hand on the warm, cracked skin of its neck and cut its throat with one efficient move. If he’d done it right- and he thought he had- the tired beast would bleed out quickly. Wilson watched as one of its large doe eyes glazed over and let out a sigh of relief.  
Behind him, Willow approached the carcass. Wilson would have loved an entire afternoon to take the strange animal apart now that it was down (imagine the intricacies of the anatomy!), but the light was fading fast, and this was looking like a two person job. They’d both have to work quickly to harvest the best of the meat and get back to camp in time.  
“Wilson,” came Willow’s voice. It was a little tighter than usual. “Would you mind-”  
Wilson turned and- “Willow!” A sizeable gash ran up Willow’s left leg, bleeding openly. It wasn’t the worst he’d seen, but Wilson nevertheless felt a knot of panic at the sight of that much blood coming from his companion. He hadn’t spared the gore a second thought when he’d killed the koalefant just a minute ago, but this was something else entirely. Willow’s blood was infinitely more important.  
“It’s nothing, honest, I just need help binding it before-”  
“Sit down. Did we bring spider silk?” Willow was looking paler than usual. How had he not seen her take this hit? Wilson wiped off his hands as Willow sat against the side of the corpse, leg extended stiffly. He examined the gash carefully, his hands and gentle as he could manage. Willow was bleeding a lot more than Wilson had expected. The cut was a deep and messy one- it probsbly wouldn’t cripple her, but it certainly wasn’t anything to sneeze at.  
“I don’t think we did, but it’s really not so bad,” said Willow, looking a little faint, but sounding as bright as ever. “I can walk on it for sure if I can just stem the bleeding, and there’s tons of salve at camp I can use on it. Gosh! I wish you wouldn’t worry so much- Wilson! Don’t use your waistcoat! You just repaired it!”  
It was too late. Wilson had already shrugged off the garment without a second thought and was tearing long strips from it, his brow furrowed with urgency. His careful stitches from that morning gave way without resistance, and he began to bind Willow’s leg, worrying at the amount of blood seeping through the striped fabric. Willow, finding that her protestations were falling on deaf ears, quieted.  
It took Wilson only a few minutes to bind Willow’s leg to his satisfaction (maybe satisfaction was too strong a word, but the binding would have to do for now), but by the time he finished, the sun was well and truly setting. With only seconds left of daylight, he lit a torch and handed it to Willow.  
“You’ll have to carry the torch this time,” he said, and knelt down to scoop Willow up in his arms, careful not to jostle her injured leg too much. She made a surprised oh! sound as she was lifted up.  
“Wilson- uh! Wait! Wilson! What about all the meat?”  
“I’ll come back for it once you’re settled at camp. Will you- careful, now, I’m much more flammable than you are,” said Wilson, trying at once to hold Willow as close to him as possible and to keep the torch a safe distance from his face.  
“Right. Sorry,” mumbled Willow.  
Wilson adjusted her in his grip and started off towards camp.  
…  
This was- oh, dear. The longer this went on, the more flustered Wilson was becoming.  
The two of them had covered a lot of distance during the hunt, so it wasn’t exactly a short walk back to camp. For the first ten minutes Wilson had been caught up in a bit of an adrenaline-fueled rush, but now, still at least half an hour from camp, Wilson was beginning to realize just how terribly close he was to Willow right now.  
Terribly close. Her head rested against his collarbone as he walked, and the arm that wasn’t holding their torch was curled around his neck for balance. Willow had at some point finally relaxed into his grip (was she half-asleep from exhaustion or near fainting? He couldn't tell, and it worried him) and Wilson could feel her soft breath against the bare skin at his collar. The warmth of it, the otherness and the strange intimacy of someone else’s unguarded breathing, was more than a little distracting. His arms were beginning to ache with fatigue, and yet he found himself oddly pleased with the solid weight of his companion curled against his chest.  
Which was not at all an appropriate thing to- oh, goodness, this- the sooner this was over, the better. And Wilson hadn’t at all stopped worrying about Willow’s leg. It was surely very painful, and from what he could feel, the bleeding hadn’t entirely stopped. What a cad he was, to be entrusted with the care of Willow’s safety, and to think only of- of-!  
Oh, thank God, there was camp, just barely within sight. Willow’s arm had dipped dangerously low where it held the torch; she was too exhausted to hold it for much longer, and he too flammable to let her. Suddenly Wilson was immeasurably weary.  
The last few minutes to camp were the longest. Wilson’s legs burned, and yet he found that he dreaded the moment he’d have to give up the warmth and the solid presence of Willow, clutched tight to him. She smelled like a campfire. He wanted to bury his nose in her hair and-  
Good lord, he was- he needed to- this was so ungentlemanly-  
Chester barrelled out of camp just as Wilson reached the stone walls. He was too tired to greet Chester properly as it bumbled around underfoot, panting with excitement, but Wilson was glad to see it nonetheless.  
“Not in the tent, old boy,” he told Chester, nudging it aside with his foot. As much as he loved Chester, it did seem determined to track mud everywhere, and Wilson wasn’t inclined to risk infecting Willow’s torn up leg.  
At last- at last- Wilson was inside the camp tent, and could lay his companion down on the soft, smelly beefalo furs they kept there. Willow grumbled and shifted against the sleeping mat, wincing as she moved her leg.  
“Ow- is it-”  
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve got plenty of silk and salve,” said Wilson. He hoped he sounded less abjectly tired than he felt. “You’ll be walking on it again in no time.” Willow let out a breathy laugh at that.  
“It does...not feel that way.”  
It didn’t look that way either. It took Wilson far too long to tease apart the ruined rags of his waistcoat- his heart hurt a little to see it so beyond repair, but that was no matter- and when he did he saw that he’d need to sew up a good part of Willow’s leg.  
His hands felt clumsy and dull with fatigue as he disinfected the wound, sewed it up, and bound it with clean silk. By the time he finished he was so tired that his eyes itched and his teeth ached (yet he still found it in himself to blush a little as he pulled the ragged hem of Willow’s skirt back down to cover her knees) (above the wound, he found, quite by accident, that her skin was...just as soft as he’d imagined) (not that he’d imagined anything).  
Despite the pain- or perhaps because of it- Willow had fallen quite unconscious, and slept now, her face still streaked with mud from the hunt. Wilson washed up his hands and pulled a blanket over his sleeping friend, careful not to wake her. And if her eyelashes looked especially dark and lovely against her cheeks as she dreamed, Wilson certainly didn’t notice.  
If Wilson reached out a hand and brushed a smudge of dirt from her cheek- if he tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear- well. It didn’t mean a thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are much much appreciated!


End file.
